J. E. ChambersinMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society(1999)

Mixed-variable symplectic integrators exhibit no long-term accumulation of energy error, beyond that owing to round-off, and they are substantially faster than conventional N-body algorithms. This makes them the integrator of choice for many…

Jupiter's Trojans are asteroids that follow essentially the same orbit as Jupiter, but lead or trail the planet by an angular distance of approximately 60 degrees (co-orbital motion). They are hypothesized to be planetesimals that formed near…

We study the effects of diffusion on the non-linear corotation torque, or horseshoe drag, in the two-dimensional limit, focusing on low-mass planets for which the width of the horseshoe region is much smaller than the scale height of the disc. In…

The main asteroid belt, which inhabits a relatively narrow annulus approximately 2.1-3.3 au from the Sun, contains a surprising diversity of objects ranging from primitive ice-rock mixtures to igneous rocks. The standard model used to explain this…

We investigate a new theory of the origin of the irregular satellites of the giant planets: capture of one member of a ???100-km binary asteroid after tidal disruption. The energy loss from disruption is sufficient for capture, but it cannot deliver…

The irregular moons of the Jovian planets are a puzzling part of the solar system inventory. Unlike regular satellites, the irregular moons revolve around planets at large distances in tilted and eccentric orbits. Their origin, which is intimately…

We introduce a new analytic method for treating the orbital motions of objects about asteroids and planets. For an asteroid following a circular path around the Sun, we rewrite Jacobi's integral of the motion in terms of the orbital elements…

The petrology record on the Moon suggests that a cataclysmic spike in the cratering rate occurred approximately 700 million years after the planets formed; this event is known as the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). Planetary formation theories cannot…

Planetary formation theories suggest that the giant planets formed on circular and coplanar orbits. The eccentricities of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, however, reach values of 6 per cent, 9 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively. In addition, the…

We report the detection of a planet whose orbit surrounds a pair of low-mass stars. Data from the Kepler spacecraft reveal transits of the planet across both stars, in addition to the mutual eclipses of the stars, giving precise constraints on the…

Prior to the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, little was known about Eros except for its orbit, spin rate, and pole orientation, which could be determined from ground-based telescope observations. Radar bounce data provided a rough…

We use a radar-derived physical model of 4179 Toutatis (975870) to investigate close-orbit dynamics around that irregularly shaped, non-principal-axis rotator. The orbital dynamics about this body are markedly different than the dynamics about…

In connection with the study of newly formed protoplanetary embryos in the early Solar System, we study the dynamics of a pair of interacting planets orbiting a Sun. By examining the topological stability of the three-body problem, one finds that…

More than 90 irregular moons of the Jovian planets have recently been discovered. These moons are an enigmatic part of the solar system inventory. Their origin, which is intimately linked with the origin of the planets themselves, has yet to be…

A system of two small planets orbiting the Sun on low-eccentricity, low-inclination orbits is stable with respect to close encounters if the initial semi-major axis difference, Δ, measured in mutual Hill radii, R<SUB>H</SUB>, exceeds[formula], due…

This paper focuses on the dynamics near the collinear equilibrium points L1,2,3 of the spatial Restricted Three Body Problem (RTBP). It is well known that the linear behavior of these three points is of the type centerxcenterxsaddle. To obtain an…

The irregular satellites of the outer planets, whose population now numbers over 100, are likely to have been captured from heliocentric orbit during the early period of solar system history. They may thus constitute an intact sample of the…

F. Farago, J. LaskarinMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society(2010)

The Lidov-Kozai mechanism allows a body to periodically exchange its eccentricity with inclination. It was first discussed in the framework of the quadrupolar secular restricted three-body problem, where the massless particle is the inner body, and…